STK no longer on Dining plan

[Dave B]

You don't even have to avoid "nice food" for it not to work.

The adult DDP is around $78 per day if memory serves me.

If I had a day that consisted of a Dole Float, the Fajita Platter and Pecos Bills with a drink and finished off the evening with Shepard's pie and Ger's bread pudding at Raglan Rd I am spending roughly $58 putting me in a $20 hole under the DDP.

Another example: Les's say I started out at Kona Cafe and got the Macadamia Pancakes for breakfast followed by the sampler platter at Flame Tree for an early dinner and then capped the evening off with a Spaghetti and Meatballs cupcake at Terra Treats. That scenario would leave one $31 in the hole under the DDP.

We are talking about two different things. I WOULD NEVER PURCHASE THE DINING PLAN,I would agree not worth the cost to purchase, by your math, but it is a great value if it is part of the FREE DINING promotion, my numbers I presented earlier don't lie

 

[WDWTrojan]

You don't even have to avoid "nice food" for it not to work.

The adult DDP is around $78 per day if memory serves me.

If I had a day that consisted of a Dole Float, the Fajita Platter and Pecos Bills with a drink and finished off the evening with Shepard's pie and Ger's bread pudding at Raglan Rd I am spending roughly $58 putting me in a $20 hole under the DDP.

Another example: Les's say I started out at Kona Cafe and got the Macadamia Pancakes for breakfast followed by the sampler platter at Flame Tree for an early dinner and then capped the evening off with a Spaghetti and Meatballs cupcake at Terra Treats. That scenario would leave one $31 in the hole under the DDP.

Exactly. Now let's say you had a huge character buffet for lunch and wanted to skip dinner. Or you were exhausted and wanted to eat at the resort QSR instead of your TSR ADR, you're basically handing Disney money. Unless the math makes it so worth it there's just no other option, I'll just never unstained why someone would want to lock themselves into pre-paying for everything in a "use it or lose it" scenario.

This says nothing of the 80% of DDP packages sold: Those during non-"free dining windows," who book rooms during mid-to-peak times of the year and pay out of pocket for the DDP, who really should be immediately given a math class and a business manager.

 

[Master Yoda]

We are talking about two different things. I WOULD NEVER PURCHASE THE DINING PLAN,I would agree not worth the cost to purchase, by your math, but it is a great value if it is part of the FREE DINING promotion, my numbers I presented earlier don't lie

Again...not always. If a room discount exceeds the cash value of the plan then a room discount is the better option. That one is a no brainer.

If you run the numbers for a particular situation and come up with spending less if you pay for meals out of pocket than the cash value of the DDP the room discount can even be a little less than the cash value of a room discount and you still come out ahead.

I use to do these calculations for clients ranging from solo travelers to groups nearing tripple digits 10-20 times a day when I was a Disney TA. Free dining is not the best deal for everyone. It is for some, but not everyone.

 

[Dave B]

Again...not always. If a room discount exceeds the cash value of the plan then a room discount is the better option. That one is a no brainer.

If you run the numbers for a particular situation and come up with spending less if you pay for meals out of pocket than the cash value of the DDP the room discount can even be a little less than the cash value of a room discount and you still come out ahead.

I use to do these calculations for clients ranging from solo travelers to groups nearing tripple digits 10-20 times a day when I was a Disney TA. Free dining is not the best deal for everyone. It is for some, but not everyone.

How about an example with some numbers included, because I do not see what you are talking about, obviously solo travelers, probably doesn't work best, but families that get free dining it works for sure

 

[Master Yoda]

How about an example with some numbers included, because I do not see what you are talking about, obviously solo travelers, probably doesn't work best, but families that get free dining it works for sure

The current Florida resident rate is a 30% discount on deluxe rooms. With 2 adults a child under 3 and one under 10, any room with a rack rate of $623 or more would be a straight-up better deal with a room discount vs free dining. If you are staying at the Poly, nearly all but standard rooms would fit this price criteria year round. At the Contemporary everything in the tower and a good chunk of the garden wings come in under that price all year long.

Drop that party to just 2 adults and a $520 rack rate is your line in the sand. That would include well more than half of all the Deluxe or better rooms on property.

To sum up...free dining works for some. If the numbers work for your travel and eating style and party make up; go nuts, my good man. The fact that I was pointing out is free dining does not work for everyone and you always have to run the numbers to be sure.

 

[Hcalvert]

Again...not always. If a room discount exceeds the cash value of the plan then a room discount is the better option. That one is a no brainer.

If you run the numbers for a particular situation and come up with spending less if you pay for meals out of pocket than the cash value of the DDP the room discount can even be a little less than the cash value of a room discount and you still come out ahead.

I use to do these calculations for clients ranging from solo travelers to groups nearing tripple digits 10-20 times a day when I was a Disney TA. Free dining is not the best deal for everyone. It is for some, but not everyone.

I got free dining for my July trip because when I ran the numbers, the room discount was not worth it as the "free dining" promotion added $500 to my 8 night reservation, so I went for it. I was planning on getting hoppers regardless, so that requirement did not make a difference for me. Also, I took this reservation and converted the tickets to APs for my family and still kept the free dining, so this promotion was a good deal for me. As for paying for it, I have booked it for my trips this year because we ran the numbers and realized that the restaurants that we liked to frequent were better to have the dining plan rather than paying out of pocket even with the AP discount. I never considered TiW because I do not believe in automatic gratuity. I am not a proponent for the DDP and will not be getting it after this year with the recent changes as well as my son will be aging out of the 3-9 category and our restaurant choices will be changing.

 

[Tom P.]

The current Florida resident rate is a 30% discount on deluxe rooms. With 2 adults a child under 3 and one under 10, any room with a rack rate of $623 or more would be a straight-up better deal with a room discount vs free dining. If you are staying at the Poly, nearly all but standard rooms would fit this price criteria year round. At the Contemporary everything in the tower and a good chunk of the garden wings come in under that price all year long.

Drop that party to just 2 adults and a $520 rack rate is your line in the sand. That would include well more than half of all the Deluxe or better rooms on property.

To sum up...free dining works for some. If the numbers work for your travel and eating style and party make up; go nuts, my good man. The fact that I was pointing out is free dining does not work for everyone and you always have to run the numbers to be sure.

What you say makes sense, and I totally agree about running the numbers. For us, we have almost always stayed at value resorts. Occasionally consider a moderate. We've toyed with the idea of going deluxe, but I just can't imagine us ever dropping that kind of money on a hotel. So for us, especially with our large family, a room discount doesn't even come close to the value of free dining. But I can see where to those who vacation differently, it would.

 

[Master Yoda]

What you say makes sense, and I totally agree about running the numbers. For us, we have almost always stayed at value resorts. Occasionally consider a moderate. We've toyed with the idea of going deluxe, but I just can't imagine us ever dropping that kind of money on a hotel. So for us, especially with our large family, a room discount doesn't even come close to the value of free dining. But I can see where to those who vacation differently, it would.

We were the same, but we had AP's which almost always killed free dining for us. The one time that it worked out was way back when you got the regular DDP with a Value room and we needed to renew our AP's.

We applied the ticket purchase to our APs and with 2 adults and 2 kids over 10 our effective discount was greater than the rack rate price of the room.